A Glimpse of A Past
by Twilight Antediluvian
Summary: Karin finds an interesting thing in Yuzu's antiques collection. Hitsugaya does not approve. Oneshot, nonromantic. Looking back on this, I think it may be Harry Potter-inspired...?


A/N: I read chapter 8 of "Twenty Truths About Hitsugaya Toushiro" by sakura rakuen here on ff-net and seconds later I was fighting the urge to write something pertaining to the time before Hitsugaya died and went to Soul Society. Twenty minutes later I was proofreading this piece. It's just a doodle, but I find the idea interesting, not to mention hilarious!

* * *

Kurosaki Karin was annoyed with her twin sister. They were seventeen already, but they were still sharing a room on the second floor of the Kurosaki Clinic. This wouldn't have been bad if it weren't for Yuzu's terrible habit of collecting any and every piece of junk there ever was. Thus, Karin took every available opportunity to stay away and hang out with Ichigo's friends, the _shinigami_, because sometimes she just didn't have the heart to tell Yuzu that the crap she was storing was driving her twin absolutely nuts.

"Yuzu! Keep the stuff on your side of the room, already! It's falling into my half again!" Irritably, she glanced at the mess, picking up a random item. She'd just put a few things on top of the neat stacks that lined the walls of half the room. She had assumed that the aged book was just some old children's story, the kind that Yuzu loved, but when it fell open in her hand to reveal photographs she had to sigh in frustration.

"Why does she keep these things?!" Quickly sifting through the pages she briefly considered throwing it away. Often her cheery twin never noticed and it would be one less worthless thing messing up their… she stopped dead in her tracks. There had been something eerily familiar about someone… she flipped back a few pages. Where was it? It had been here, somewhere. Growling, she flipped back and forth through the pages before realising that a pair of them had stuck together. Carefully prying them apart, her gaze fell on the photo and she simply gaped in stunned surprise. This was… strange. She'd just borrow the album from Yuzu, she wouldn't hide it under the bed like she usually did. This was just too curious not to be investigated.

* * * * *

"Ichi-nii! Ichi-nii!" Karin was rarely emotional, so her calling out like that had her brother instantly worried, but she didn't look hurt. Actually, she looked pretty excited.

"Karin!" What was that thing she was waving around? It looked ancient. She stopped just before stumbling into Matsumoto Rangiku, who had somehow managed to get herself, her taichou and a few other high-ranked Shinigami a mission to the World of the Living; something that seemed pretty much like vacation, though Toushiro was constantly bugging them to do their work properly. Karin obviously didn't have enough breath left to speak to him, but she was holding up the book she had been carrying, open on a specific page. He had been right; it _was_ ancient. And a photo album, to boot. Why would she carry something like that? He peered curiously at the photo she was pointing at and was stunned speechless. Behind him, Rangiku and Renji started laughing uncontrollably.

* * * * *

"What's the matter of this?" Hitsugaya was stingy, he had paperwork to do, no one had taken him seriously all day and now his fukutaichou and Abarai could be heard from halfway across the block, the way they were laughing.

"Oh _taichou_!" Matsumoto could just barely contain her guffawing and pointed shakily to Karin and the dusty old book. He knew something was wrong when he went up to the suddenly apprehensive young Kurosaki and heard Matsumoto whisper behind his back: "_Maybe we should get out of here, __eh,__ Renji?_"

He twirled around to order her to stay right where she was, but the woman's skills at self-preservation were better than he'd assumed. Now what was this? Turning back to the obviously uncertain Kurosaki, he frowned.

"Well? What is it?" The girl raised her chin defiantly and shoved the picture toward him. At first, he couldn't even breathe. Then, he clenched his jaw, only to have the picture pulled away as the girl sped hastily from the scene of the crime. Somehow, he felt compelled to do something he would usually only have done to his fukutaichou, roaring after her quickly disappearing back:

"_Kurosaki_!"

The picture was rather simple, a couple with a young infant in their arms. Underneath the brilliantly smiling mother, the white-haired father and their approximately three-year old, serious toddler with his father's hair and his mother's eyes were three names and a date, neatly scribbled:

_Hitsugaya __Mizuho, __Hitsugaya Yoritomo, __Hitsugaya Toushiro_

_anno 1906_

They all had a past somewhere, but Toushiro was fairly sure that his baby self would somehow come up for no reason at all… around the next time Matsumoto wanted something.


End file.
